Many players are enjoying earning points even more quickly with our new market, the S&P 500 index; with a number of players gaining enough points this week to get them over that all important points level to allow them to earn cash rewards. Looks like we’ll be rewarding even more players in the coming weeks…

The S&P is the sixth option we’ve added to Spark Profit on in addition to our FX pairs and Bitcoin. This index is one of the most traded markets in the world and represents about 70% of the total value of shares traded in the US. It is one of the most commonly followed indexes and gives a very good indication of the world economy in general. You can make predictions on it almost 24 hours a day, 5 days of the week with the most active hours been between 8.30 to 15:00 (Chicago time) when the cash index is open.

So give it a try! It behaves a little differently than the FX markets but may give you the opportunity to earn rewards even faster than before! Any questions or feedback, we’d love to hear from you at [email protected]

Tokyo-based startup Nous today announced a new service allowing people to make predictions on the Standard and Poor’s 500 equity index for free, with the unusual benefit of earning cash if they accumulate enough points making correct predictions.

Spark Profit, their phone and web-based prediction app, was released on January 29th this year after extensive beta-testing in 2013. Initially supporting Foreign Exchange and Bitcoin, today marked a milestone for the firm with the addition of it’s first Equity Index market. More indices are planned to arrive in the coming weeks.

Nous’ CEO, Justin Short, said “We built Spark Profit so people could discover their hidden talents while doing something valuable in their spare time. Adding the S&P500 index gives everyone an extra opportunity to do just that.”

Nous has awarded over USD $24,000 to its users to date. These rewards are paid for by a unique business model, that Nous calls “Crowd-sourced Alpha”. With this model, large financial trading firms pay to subscribe to the stream of predictions, using the insights contained in the data to inform their own trading decisions and increase trading efficiency.

About Nous

Nous was founded in 2012 by Justin Short and four other former high flying Merrill Lynch traders and technologists, who saw an opportunity to help firms understand and predict financial markets, by empowering people around the world to discover and hone their natural trading talents. It launched Spark Profit, the virtual trading game, in January 2014.

When Spark Profit was released a few months ago you could predict four of the larger currency markets, plus Bitcoin. Today we’re excited to announce the addition of our first stock index, the “Standard And Poors 500”. This index is often used as a proxy for the entire US stock market and is one of the most heavily traded indices in the world.

Of course, making predictions for the S&P 500 is just as simple as with our other markets. Once you’ve taken the tutorial just open the graph, click or tap to set a target price and a stop price, and you’re done.

We’ll be adding other countries’ major stock indices over the coming weeks and months. Unfortunately they are not actively traded outside of their typical market hours so this requires just a bit more work on our side. They’ll be there soon, we promise.

We hope you enjoy the new challenge – and the opportunity to earn points and rewards even more quickly! As always please don’t hesitate to send any feedback to [email protected]

Good news for our friends in Pakistan and a few other countries: we’ve added a Skrill payment option. At the moment both PayPal and Skrill options are completely free to use because we’re being nice and don’t pass on all the charges we have to pay to use their services.

Payment Options

It’s pretty simple, just go to your Profile page and choose Skrill. It automatically sends the money to the same email address as registered in the app, so do be sure to change (and re-verify) your email if you need to.

When you have enough money in your account to make a withdrawal, you’ll see a button like this one. Click and the money will be sent as soon our additional security checks have passed, usually within 24 hours.

We’ve awarded over USD $22,000 in prizes now. How much have you earned?